Perhaps you saw the recent online blurb about the owner of a carwash who owed the IRS four cents! Maybe it was done as a joke born in the twisted volumes of IRS evanescent policy; perhaps it was intended as a message to the rest of us. Frankly my dears, I don't know.
Anyway, two IRS agents showed up at his place of business and demanded payment. He paid. The cartoon accompanying the story depicted two men, suit and sunglass clad, holding the caricature upside down, shaking pennies from his pockets.
If it was done as a joke, unfunny as it was, the IRS was spending taxpayer money for a laugh. If it was a message (and this is what I believe), it comes as a prophesy of more aggressive collection tactics. Interestingly, riding on the tail of health care reform, and more interestingly, given the mandate that the IRS is set to add 16,000 people to enforce citizen's compliance to purchase health care insurance, it does not bode well.
Here in Washington, a state which already taxes 158 services and commodities (one of the higher number of the 50 states), three more items were selected for additional taxation: beer, soda pop, and candy. Perhaps this is an Obama et ali way of encouraging more healthful living. (I don't really believe that.)
It's cloudy today with light, intermittent rain.
Lord, let me spread a little sunshine in this sad world. Amen. e.c.
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